Many of the beings in this book - Cheiron,

Pan, Acheloos, the Sirens and others - will

be familiar from the narratives of Greek

mythology, in which fabulous anatomies

abound. However, they have never previously

been studied together from a religious

perspective, as recipients of cult and as

members of the ancient pantheon. This book is the first major treatment

of the use of part-animal - mixanthropic - form in the representation and

visual imagination of Greek gods and goddesses, and of its significance

with regard to divine character and function. What did it mean to depict

deities in a form so strongly associated in the ancient imagination with

monstrous adversaries? How did iconography, myth and ritual interact

in particular sites of worship? Drawing together literary and visual material,

this study establishes the themes dominant in the worship of divine

mixanthropes, and argues that, so far from being insignificant curiosities,

they make possible a greater understanding of the fabric of ancient

religious practice, in particular the tense and challenging relationship

between divinity and visual representation.